We certainly didn't intend this, but our barn is the perfect horror venue for sheep on this All Hallows Eve...

We have three sheep currently in our medical stall - one belongs to my friend Tim: we're keeping 16 of his sheep for a month to give his pasture a break.

She ripped off most of the skin on her snout, right down to the skull. This happened about four weeks ago, so the wound itself is healed, but her skull bone is still visible, and probably always will be. We nicknamed her "Scarface".

About a week ago we brought Jihad in - at first we thought it was mastitis, but finally came to the conclusion that Neo the mini-horse had trampled her. Neo has a new home now - we couldn't tolerate that kind of behavior no matter how cute he was. She's pretty beat up and sore, and when sheep get that way they tend not to eat. We've practically had to force feed her - we think she'll recover but right now she's positively skeletal.

And finally, what did we find this morning but Stubby, our oldest ewe and a Horned Dorset, literally covered with blood. She had removed one of her horns! Probably either got it caught in the fence or (more likely) by butting heads with another ewe or wether. She'll be fine, but horns have a lot of blood vessels, and she looks like an extra in one of the chainsaw massacre movies.

The rest of the flock keeps coming over to the gates and gawking at the three wounded girls, then moving on out to the paddocks, just like people do when they visit a seasonal "haunted house". I wonder if they know it's Halloween?

Now this is absurd - but apparently quite accurate. Scary and fascinating ...

Professor Ariely describes some experiments which demonstrated something he calls “arbitrary coherence”. Basically it means that once you contemplate a decision or actually make a decision, it will heavily influence your subsequent decisions. That’s the coherence part. Your brain will try to keep your decisions consistent with previous decisions you have made.

We never seem to learn, do we? We are monkeying about with forces that we just barely understand, and are bound to pay a price. I wonder who'll will be the next group of radium girls?

Great things are expected of terahertz waves, the radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum between microwaves and the infrared. Terahertz waves pass through non-conducting materials such as clothes, paper, wood and brick and so cameras sensitive to them can peer inside envelopes, into living rooms and 'frisk' people at distance. That's not to mention the great potential they have in medical imaging. Because terahertz photons are not energetic enough to break chemical bonds or ionize electrons, it's easy to dismiss fears over their health effects. And yet the evidence is mixed: some studies have reported significant genetic damage while others, although similar, have reported none. Now a team led by Los Alamos National Labs thinks it knows why. They say that although the forces that terahertz waves exert on double-stranded DNA are tiny, in certain circumstances resonant effects can unzip the DNA strands, tearing them apart. This creates bubbles in the strands that can significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. With terahertz scanners already appearing in airports and hospitals, the question that now urgently needs answering is what level of exposure is safe.

In the humble opinion of this heathen farm boy, the article is both right and wrong. Right in the sense that coyotes are naturally human avoiders, and we (humans) are certainly in more danger from pit bulls and other feral dog breeds. My sheep are in danger of both.

It's wrong in that feral domestic dogs, which are dumped in the country with amazing frequency, can and do breed with coyotes. "Coy-dogs", they're called around here, and they can and have attacked people and livestock. That's the real danger. Packs of these half-breed critters have cut and brought down grown bulls as well as kids on bicycles.

The problem would be solved if only city folks would stop driving out to the country and dumping litters of unwanted puppies. But that, of course, would mean wholesale reform of our animal welfare system.

I'm not holding my breath, but I am buying more ammo.

Coyote populations are growing, in the wild as well as in populated areas where they hunt for pets and garbage. But attacks are rare and, statistically speaking, coyotes are far less of a threat than pit bulls.

I'm not a fan of Conan the Republican but I have to admire the general cleverness of this veto message ...

Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger has told Democrat San Francisco assembly member Tom Ammiano just what he thinks of him and his "infrastructure financing districts" bill in a letter which explicity slams the latter, while firing a delicious acrostic broadside at its author.

A recent study is suggesting that moral behavior may be encouraged with nothing more than clean smells. The Brigham Young University professor found a "dramatic improvement in ethical behavior with just a few spritzes of citrus-scented Windex." "The researchers see implications for workplaces, retail stores and other organizations that have relied on traditional surveillance and security measures to enforce rules. [] Perhaps the findings could be applied at home, too, Liljenquist said with a smile. 'Could be that getting our kids to clean up their rooms might help them clean up their acts, too.' The study titled "The Smell of Virtue" was unusually simple and conclusive. Participants engaged in several tasks, the only difference being that some worked in unscented rooms, while others worked in rooms freshly spritzed with Windex."

A coalition of musicians is demanding the US government cough a list of tracks allegedly used to torture inmates of Guantanamo Bay, as former prisoners claim they were subjected to the Bee Gees, Britney Spears and Sesame Street at "ear-splitting level"